2013 MLB All-Overrated Team

[mr.hockey4242]

Vice is obviously overrating the RBI stat I'll say that. Harper though should have more than 40 RBI I believe. He has batted 3rd for a lot of the year and isn't hitting behind complete trash. Nationals lineup is bad but not AWFUL.

Figured the Prince/Mauer thing would go completely over Vice head. Sad thing is I have already told him that Mauer is one of the best run creators per 27 outs. Not his fault he bats behind the worst leadoff platoon ever(dozier has solidified it better lately) and Prince drives in Miggy, Torrii and Ajax lol.

RBI's are great but a lot goes into them. Obviously if you are hitting like Allen Craig with RISP you are earning every bit of them but sometimes they fall into your lap.

Just off my head I can recall early this year. Mauer played wall ball with the green monster 2 times a game for a series. Created a lot of Sac fly's for Morneau because the wall is so close that runner had to be held at 3rd.

As posted above. Votto is another who isn't driving in a ton but still amazing at creating runs.

 

[ckhokie]

This is getting ridiculous:
Joey Votto actually has to defend himself? This is where we are? | HardballTalk

I agree with the article. Paul Daugherty is a terrible excuse for a sports writer. The guy is a small town hack. I would struggle to disagree more with most of his articles.

 

[navamind]

Vice is obviously overrating the RBI stat I'll say that. Harper though should have more than 40 RBI I believe. He has batted 3rd for a lot of the year and isn't hitting behind complete trash. Nationals lineup is bad but not AWFUL.

Figured the Prince/Mauer thing would go completely over Vice head. Sad thing is I have already told him that Mauer is one of the best run creators per 27 outs. Not his fault he bats behind the worst leadoff platoon ever(dozier has solidified it better lately) and Prince drives in Miggy, Torrii and Ajax lol.

RBI's are great but a lot goes into them. Obviously if you are hitting like Allen Craig with RISP you are earning every bit of them but sometimes they fall into your lap.

Just off my head I can recall early this year. Mauer played wall ball with the green monster 2 times a game for a series. Created a lot of Sac fly's for Morneau because the wall is so close that runner had to be held at 3rd.

As posted above. Votto is another who isn't driving in a ton but still amazing at creating runs.

Fielder's actually having a pretty crappy year. .260/.348/.436, 111 OPS+ from a slow, poor defensive 1B. I knew he was having a down year, but I didn't realize how much his power numbers have dropped off. His power numbers were down last year too.

 

[ImSmartherThanYou]

Arther, you can't go around saying teams that missed the playoffs are better than teams that made the World Series. It's just silly. It's stuff like that which will make people lose interest in getting you to defend overrated outfielders for two days. And you don't want that, do you?

Yeah, you definitely can. Quite easily, actually. 162 games is a lot more telling than a couple dozen in October. Especially when those 162 games come in a tougher division. And we all know that the playoffs are a complete crapshoot and the best team rarely wins.

 

[broncosmitty]

You sure are a foolish little stat monkey.

 

[navamind]

You sure are a foolish little stat monkey.

PLEASE LOVE MY TIGERS.

 

[ImSmartherThanYou]

I'msmarter - I think you're downplaying RBIs. We all know it's somewhat reliant on the rest of the team, but when you're the 3 hitter, you should be driving in runs, regardless of who is in front of you.

I would guess (off the top of my head) that Joey Votto, as a 3 hitter, has a low RBI total compared to the rest of the league - partly bc his power number are down, but much to do with the fact that if you can't hit, Dusty Baker will bat you 2nd. Votto and Harper are both only getting RBIs in 13% of their ABs. (FWIW, Votto walks 21% of the time, Harper 15%). I will check to see how those compare to 3 hitters in the league when I am not at work and have some more time.

That's not my name, but I'll assume you're talking to me.

No, I'm not downplaying RBI in any way. I view them as they are: a secondary statistic that you go to when the more important statistics don't tell you enough to differentiate between two or more players. They're not a primary statistic that you can go to to gauge the performance of an individual player because the statistic is too reliant on things the hitter has no control over.

A #3 hitter should be driving in runs regardless of who is hitting in front of him? Do you realize how silly that sounds? RBI are COMPLETELY DEPENDENT on who is hitting in front of you. It's hard to drive in runners that aren't there. You want your top hitters hitting 3-5 so that they get the most opportunities with runners on base. Otherwise, you'd just put your best hitters at the very top of the lineup so that they get the most at-bats. If you have bad OBP guys in the 1 & 2 holes (which Washington does this year), you're going to have problems driving in runs. Especially on an NL team, where the #9 hitter is the pitcher. You have to have great OBP guys at 1 & 2 or else the #3 isn't going to have many RBI.

Obviously, a hitter can also underperform when the get runners on, and I've acknowledged that Harper has done just that this season, but performance with RISP generally fluctuates from season-to-season and is random in general.

You bring up Joey Votto. Votto basically proves the point for me, so thanks for that. Votto has had Choo on base a lot in front of him, but he's also had pieces of shit like Cozart, Chris Heisey, and Cesar Izturis hitting ahead of him, none of whom get on base at all. Then, he's got Brandon Phillips behind him, who is an okay hitter, but generally not a tough out. They pitch around Votto like nobody's business, and he's led the league in intentional walks each of the last two years. He's supposed to swing at bad pitches just because? This isn't Joey Votto's fault, it's Dusty Baker's fault for being so incapable of properly filling out a lineup card. Phillips proves the inverse of this situation. He's not a good hitter but is racking up RBI because he's constantly got Choo and Votto on base ahead of him and gets pitches to hit because pitchers would rather pitch to him than Votto or Bruce.

Furthermore, Votto's numbers with RISP are fucking outstanding. .314/.469/.495. He's basically the same hitter with RISP as he is with the bases empty. He simply doesn't get enough quality pitches to hit because pitchers would rather face Brandon Phillips, and he doesn't have enough runners on base in front of him. His BABIP with RISP is also very good, showing that he makes good contact on the rare occasion he gets a pitch to hit. He also almost never strikes out in these situations.

 

[ImSmartherThanYou]

You sure are a foolish little stat monkey.

Considering the source, I consider that a compliment. Thank you.

 

[ImSmartherThanYou]

Harper though should have more than 40 RBI I believe. He has batted 3rd for a lot of the year and isn't hitting behind complete trash. Nationals lineup is bad but not AWFUL.

Look at the guys in front of him.

Span has been poor at getting on base. Rendon and Desmond don't get on base that much. Espinosa, Lombardozzi and Bernadina were given a shot at the 2 hole and were awful getting on base. Werth was hitting ahead of him at the beginning of the seasons but that was long before he started raking again. Zimmerman has been solid but unspectacular getting on.

Harper's not helping his cause by not hitting well with RISP, and that's on him, but it's not like he's innately incapable of hitting with RISP. He did just fine last year. And that tends to balance out over the seasons.

 

[mr.hockey4242]

Another guy starting to be vastly overrated...not by performance but by stupid ass WAR and over reaction by so called "experts" is Carlos Gomez.

I am not a bitter Twins fan either. Great defense and a bat that started hot but good god its getting ridiculous some of the things I keep seeing on the guy.

 

[navamind]

Another guy starting to be vastly overrated...not by performance but by stupid ass WAR and over reaction by so called "experts" is Carlos Gomez.

I am not a bitter Twins fan either. Great defense and a bat that started hot but good god its getting ridiculous some of the things I keep seeing on the guy.

A lot it has to do with defense. Stats like UZR has him at +16. However, Total Zone Runs has him at +27. While he's widely considered to be a good defensive CF and most metrics back that up, I have a difficult time believing he's saved that many runs (especially 27) through 114 games. FWIW, his oWAR is 3.5, which ranks just outside the top 10 in the NL (CarGo and Tulo are at 3.9).


Regardless of WAR, a CF batting .288/.339/.519 with plus defense and 30 SB (caught only 6 times) is a damn good player. He's had a very nice breakout year after showing signs of encouragement last year.

 

[soxfan1468927]

When a runner is on third... And nobody is on first... You think only 4% of the time they walk the guy intentionally to get the dp in play? Seriously? Do you watch baseball? Try 40% and that may be low.

40%???? And you are actually going to claim that someone else doesn't watch the game? If you think that an intentional walk occurs in 40% or higher in that situation then I can only assume that you have never watched so much as an inning of baseball.

 

[soxfan1468927]

Stat nerds dont need to watch the game... They can tell everything fom stats...

Says the guy who thought that players get intentionally walked 40% of the time when there is a runner on 3rd to set up the double play.

 

[soxfan1468927]

Now do the math and see what that does to ops and ba

I'll do some math for you...it does absolutely nothing to BA.

 

[da55bums]

Why don't you do the math for once? Why on earth do you expect me to do all the legwork to prove your blanket statements wrong?

Are you planning on admitting you were way off on your "40% of the time the IBB happens" claim?

You're simply just asking more questions, and ignoring points when I prove you wrong

I already showed you the sac flys wouldn't have the effect on OPS like you claimed...you never admitted you were incorrect, then moved on to IBB. I showed you that your IBB estimates were way off in terms of frequency (40%, really?), and you never admitted you were incorrect.

And you just keep asking questions to try to make me run in circles.



Is that not a fairly accurate analysis of what's going on here?

Vice and his "stat" or Facts will always keep you guessing....how do those even make sense? lol....great call Stan...

 

[da55bums]

by the way, never will admit when wrong, usually just disappears and trys to "win" elswhere with someone who doesn't use facts.

 

[StanMarsh51]

by the way, never will admit when wrong, usually just disappears and trys to "win" elswhere with someone who doesn't use facts.

Yea, I figured that's the last of MiamiVice we'll see in this thread....you can only make blanket statements for so long before being called out on it (and in his case, disproved).

 

[da55bums]

Nick Swisher...and whoever else anybody wants.